Climate Change and the International Negotiations

Our new, May 2015 edition of QUNO Review is now available for download below. The publication provides a brief introduction to QUNO and our way of working, as well as an overview of each of our programme areas. Learn more about our past year of our work and see where we are headed in 2015.

The Geneva Climate Change Concertation Group (GeCCco), the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change and Human Rights (GIF), QUNO and other NGOs concerned about the impact of climate change on human rights, will co-host CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THE WAY FORWARD IN THE HRC, a side event to the 28th session of the Human Rights Council.

The side event will be held on Friday, 6 March, from 1-3pm in Room XXVII at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Further details are available in the document below.

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Our Geneva office is now hiring a Programme Assistant for September 2015 to August 2016. This is an opportunity for a person in sympathy with Quaker approaches and with an interest in international affairs and in international organizations. You would experience a range of international work, while working primarily as an assistant to QUNO’s Representative for Food & Sustainability in her work relating to agricultural trade, intellectual property of plants and innovation by small-scale farmers. The work also includes a support role to QUNO’s Bonn-based Representative for Climate Change, maintaining strong linkages between QUNO’s work in Geneva and in Bonn, contributing to programme outreach and acting as a Geneva-based presence in meetings.

For more information, visit our PA page and download the complete job description and application form below. The deadline for applications is 30 March.

QUNO, together with the World Council of Churches and Religions for Peace, co-hosted a side event on the human rights impacts of anthropogenic climate change on 10 December 2014, during the 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Lima, Peru.

The increasing impacts of anthropogenic climate change are a grave danger to humankind and nature, severely jeopardizing human rights and life on Earth. Drawing from a joint letter by the UN Human Rights Special Procedures mandate-holders to the UNFCCC, the event aimed to galvanize debate around actions necessary to strengthen respect and promotion of human rights in climate negotiations.

Joining the panel were Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food; the Rev Henrik Grape, from the Church of Sweden; John Knox, UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and the Environment; and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The discussion was moderated by Yves Lador, of EarthJustice.

Photo: A Quechua priest gives a ceremonial sip of chicha, a fermented maize drink, to a young girl during the Global March for the Climate on Dec 10th. More than 15,000 people took part in the Climate March in Lima while the UN climate talks were taking place. Credit: Lutheran World Federation/Sean Hawkey

Related Areas of Work

QUNO Geneva is pleased to share the most recent issue of our Geneva Reporter newsletter and accompanying briefing paper on The Aarhus Convention. Other featured articles include updates on our A New Framework for Trade and Investment in Agriculture work, the Human Rights Council, UN Climate Summit, and Peace and Disarmament.

On 23 September, world leaders met in New York for the UN Climate Summit to highlight the urgency of acting on anthropogenic climate change. Civil society also played a vital role in this process, as demonstrated by the momentous People’s Climate March.

In addition to joining the march and hosting two intimate "quiet conversation" lunches with local faith communities, civil society actors and policymakers, the QUNO Human Impacts of Climate Change programme released two publications during this critical time.

QUNO has also drafted a “Quaker Statement on Climate Change,” which was signed by Quaker organizations and distributed to all Yearly Meetings worldwide. The Statement recognizes the moral duty of Quakers worldwide to respond to the challenge of climate change and calls for meaningful international action on anthropogenic climate change.

Related Areas of Work

On 22 September, QUNO and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) co-hosted a lunch with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and faith community representatives from the New York region. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, alongside Dr. Chris Field, Co-Chair of the recent 5th Assessment Report Working Group II, and Dr. Renata Christ, Secretary of the IPCC, spoke with 30 representatives from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’í​ and Brahma Kumaris communities.

Dr. Pachauri focused on the most recent climate science findings, the human impact of increasing temperatures, the root causes of anthropogenic climate change, and ways in which we can effectively decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Following these discussions, guests explored the spiritual and moral challenge of anthropogenic climate change. The lunch was an opportunity for grassroots faith communities to connect with international efforts and resources in their work to ensure the most vulnerable communities now, and all our future generations, do not suffer as a consequence of our actions.

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QUNO has established a new meeting space in Bonn, from which the new Climate Change Representative, Lindsey Fielder Cook, will work. This new location enables QUNO staff to work closely with Bonn-based organisations focused on climate change and environmental issues. The space is set between the woods and the UN Offices in Bonn and is heated by a variety of green energy sources.

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Following an international selection process, we are pleased to announce that Lindsey Fielder Cook has been appointed as the new QUNO Representative on Climate Change. Lindsey has a background in peacebuilding and climate change, and has worked on humanitarian and donor coordination efforts with the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza, the Former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and on communications for the United Nations Volunteers in Bonn. Lindsey will take forward this work from the newly established QUNO meeting space in Bonn.

Related Areas of Work

QUNO attended the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 9th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), held from 11 – 22 November in Warsaw, Poland. QUNO’s support of the UNFCCC multilateral process includes offering off-the-record spaces for delegates to meet, exchange ideas, and build bridges and trust. To find out more about the conference and the UNFCCC, visit http://unfccc.int/meetings/warsaw_nov_2013/meeting/7649.php.

Related Areas of Work

QUNO attended the UNFCCC Joint Workshop on the Framework for Various Approaches, Non-Market-Based Approaches and the New Market Mechanism in Bonn, Germany.

Lindsey Cook, representing QUNO, highlighted that current global emission rates are at "top end of ... emissions scenarios", likely leading to increased temperatures of 4.2 to 5 centigrade by 2100. She encouraged negotiators to act on the "small window to keep rising global temperatures below 2.6 degrees Centigrade", and spoke of negotiators’ "extraordinarily privileged position to act positively".

Related Areas of Work

QUNO attended the thirty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 38) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38), and the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-2) under the UNFCCC.